COVID-19 A Massive Scam Perpetrated At the Highest Levels, Media, Industry, Finance Complicit

Just about everything being shoved down the throats of Americans (and, we can safely assume, the rest of the world) about the coronavirus by the mainstream media (MSM) is either questionable, being drawn into question, refuted, or outright bunk. Examples will be given in this installment of the WEEKEND WRAP.

The United states is approaching one million confirmed cases of the virus, and has already surpassed 50,000 deaths. The actual number of cases of the virus is orders of magnitude higher, as preliminary antibody studies from New York and California have shown.

The California study, undertaken in Santa Clara county, home to San Francisco, shows that "prevalence estimates represent a range between 48,000 and 81,000 people infected in Santa Clara County by early April, 50 to 85-fold more than the number of confirmed cases,” the authors wrote. Published on April 17, the number of confirmed deaths in Santa Clara County was 99, meaning that the true mortality rate is somewhere between 0.12 percent and 0.2 percent, meaning that roughly one or two people in every thousand would die from the virus, a number very close to that of the ordinary seasonal flu.

The same kind of results are shown in New York, where 13.9% of people in New York's first antibody study tested positive, meaning they had the virus and recovered; that means up to 2.7 million people could have been infected statewide and the mortality rate would have been roughly 0.5 percent, not the 4.5 to 6 percent that the media has been touting. There are also widespread reports of the numbers being artificially inflated, throwing in all deaths of people who tested positive for COVID-19, regardless of the underlying cause.

The federal government has been doling out billions of dollars to states via the CARES act which, through Medicaid, pays hospitals $13,000 for COVID-19 patients, upping the bounty to $39,000 if one is put on a ventilator.

As many as 80% of people put on ventilators die, and many doctors are refusing to use them in treatment of severe cases, though hospital administrators - in dire need of funding - continue to push for their use, despite the findings that prove a suspiciously-poor recovery rate.

The ongoing controversy over hydroxychloroquine, in conjunction with zinc and sometimes, arithromycin, which Money Daily has already covered on Thursday, April 24 continues to rage between the truth and the mainstream media's fear angle.

Here's Laura Ingraham with an expert cardiologist explaining why the media shouldn't be running around with their hair on fire over the FDA's warning about hydrochloroquine:



...and then there's the complete nonsense about "flattening the curve" through stay-at-home orders, lockdowns, staying six feet apart that has decimated the global economy.

The effect of the lockdown was to keep the hospitals from being overrun. In the entire United States, few hospitals have been overrun with COVID-19 patients, mostly in New York City, Boston, and a few other hotspots. Most hospitals have treated very few coronavirus sufferers. It wasn't about saving lives because the disease will still spread, albeit at a slower pace. Additionally, the vast majority of people who die from coronavirus are elderly and/or suffering from other maladies (co-morbidities).

According to statistics out of New York City, 95% of the deaths due to coronavirus were from 45-75+ years of age.

Moving on to testing, all that testing is going to do is probably enrich the companies that make the tests and confirm that a lot more people than previously assumed had contracted COVID-19 and are now immune.

Instead of shutting down the entire economy, the rational approach would have been to quarantine seniors and people with pre-existing conditions - primarily diabetes, high blood pressure, heart-related ailments - but that wasn't considered. Instead, we've trashed more than 200 years of capitalism over an infectious disease that's barely more deadly than the seasonal flu. It will rank as one of the greatest blunders (or planned event) in the entire history of the planet.

The conclusion is that all developed nations were in on the coronavirus scam (or, as some are calling it, the plandemic) because the elites already had a plan in place to disrupt national economies, destroy governments, enslave people, and usher in a new world currency while covering up the imminent crash of stock markets and, eventually, all fiat currencies. The entire process will take years - it's been underway for decades - but this was a major part of the overall effort, and it seems to be succeeding.

The main casualties so far:

Nursing homes
Small businesses
Sporting events
Concerts
Cruises
Colleges
Confidence

Winners:

Wall Street
Big Government
Mainstream Media (MSM)
Health Care / Big Pharma

Bah! You've been had, and the after-effects are going to be even worse.

Now, on to the markets, or, what's left of them.

Stocks had an up and down week, but ended down with all but the NASDAQ finishing with losses of just under two percent. The darling NASDAQ was nearly flat, losing just 15 points (-0.18%). This was just the second weekly loss of the last five, since the Fed stepped in last month with massive funding programs.

Despite trillions being thrown at banks and what are now zombie corporations, the major indices are still in bear markets, though they are all resting right about at their 50-day moving averages.

If anything, they seemed to have plateaued for the time being. Another downdraft could be coming, but, with all the Fed currency behind them, shorting this market is strictly for those who can afford massive losses. Being in this market for any reason is simply a fool's errand. Stocks are headed toward a massive crash, which has only been prevented by the Fed. Eventually, fundamentals matter, and many major corporations, since stock buybacks are now frowned upon, have resorted to leveraging up with debt, conveniently purchased by the Federal Reserve and their unlimited currency campaign.

Oil magically rebounded after posting negative numbers upon the maturity of May futures. June futures for WTI crude are resting comfortably at $16.94 a barrel. It's a bonanza for drivers, with prices at the pump the lowest in a generation. Gas hoarding, once people get back on the road, could be a real thing. It's cheap, why not?

Treasury bonds are a graveyard. The curve flattened out to a mere 107 basis points as the long end collapsed. Yield on the 30-year fell to 1.17%, while one-month bills ended the week yielding 0.10%. The 10-year note finished out the week with a yield of 0.60%. Since demand for treasuries is shrinking rapidly, the curve and steepness or flatness of it will hardly matter any more. The Federal Reserve will be buying most, if not all, of the issuance within months as monetization takes flight fully. The disaster in capital funding, like most of the rest of the monetary and fiscal weirdness, has only just begun.

Bonds are screaming that the condition of the economy is one of being on a deathbed with Dr. Fauci overseeing the patient. It's sure to continue a downward spiral, leading to death. Getting people back to work won't alleviate the condition since many small businesses will not reopen. The onrush of bankruptcies and credit defaults are about to accelerate. Many renters - commercial and residential - are planning on not paying their rents come May 1, which is this coming Friday, suggesting that this week may look like a picnic compared to the carnage caused by the realization that a good third of the country is going broke the first full week of May.

Gold and silver made gains on the COMEX, and were little changed, though lower on eBay, where buyers can actually get physical precious metals delivered on a reasonable time basis (1-4 days). Dealers are still placing premiums on both gold and silver, and delivery times remain weeks off with many of the more popular items still out of stock.

Here are this week's figures from sales on eBay:
Item Low High Avg. Median
1 oz silver coin 25.15 31.74 27.57 27.44
1 oz silver bar 23.20 31.16 26.34 25.85
1 oz gold coin 1,819.85 1,962.25 1,884.09 1,880.50
1 oz gold bar 1,849.95 2,002.65 1,901.98 1,893.92

To close out this edition of the WEEKEND WRAP, a final word about the lockdown and states "opening up" as it were: We should not have been in lockdown in the first place. The coronavirus, or COVID-19, is not a killer disease for more than 90% of the population. It now appears, after blowing out all the hyperbole and media spin, that the state-by-state lockdown was pre-planned at the highest levels. It was completely unnecessary, as evidenced by the results out of Sweden, which was one country which chose not to torpedo their economy. The Swedes have experienced the same or fewer cases of infection per capita and fewer deaths than their counterparts. Their example is the one which should have been followed.

Additionally, as part of the plan to bail out Wall Street and next, the states themselves, economic conditions are more likely to continue deteriorating over the near term. Accumulating hard assets is advisable, whereas investing should be regarded as gambling in a rigged casino, unless you are ultra rich and have inside information. Most of us do not.

Go out and hug somebody. COVID-19 is a massive psy-op designed to demoralize and dehumanize. Don't let them win.


At the Close, Friday, April 24, 2020:
Dow: 23,775.27, +259.97 (+1.11%)
NASDAQ: 8,634.52, +139.77 (+1.65%)
S&P 500: 2,836.74, +38.94 (+1.39%)
NYSE: 11,017.90, +101.20 (+0.93%)

For the Week:
Dow: -467.22 (-1.93%)
NASDAQ: -15.62 (-0.18%)
S&P 500: -37.82 (-1.32%)
NYSE: -190.40 (-1.70%)

Sweden Done With Negative Rates; How Does The World Reverse Course?

From the land that gave us the Volvo and Greta Thunberg, comes news that the nation of Sweden has abandoned its five-year-long experiment with negative interest rates.

The news is actually about a week old, but, being that there was so much going on between the impeachment of President Trump, the China trade deal, and the public's general disinterest with anything not related to either the NFL or Christmas, that the Riksbank raising its overnight repo interest rate from -0.25% to 0.0% hardly warranted notice.

Nonetheless, the global response was as expected from the groupthink of the central bank community. Rates instantly rose, and a chorus of seemingly smart-sounding people recited verses calling for fiscal measures to be undertaken immediately, to counteract the anti-stimulative effect of cancelling out the negative rates that are, in turn, cancelling out currencies around the globe.

According to the central banking community, debt and spending must be promoted by governments as the bankers have done all they could do to alter the flow of goods and services and money in a positive direction. The Swedes have failed, and with that, so too the central banks of the Europe Union nations, Japan, Denmark, Hungary, and Switzerland.

What comes now is general consensus on the direction of economies and globalized financial repression. More spending must be undertaken by governments, on infrastructure, military hardware, green initiatives, social programs and anything else the politicians can get behind and garner more votes for themselves, virtue-signaling that they are the saviors of the free and not-so-free world.

Such a plan could not be concocted by a more smarmy gaggle of decrepit geezers and their enabling political hacks. The worldwide crackdown on savings was not efficient enough to erase decades of excess and misanthropic misadventures into economic dystopia. Now the banking and political community will expose the world to even more egregious profligate spending that will no doubt benefit few, mostly politicians and bankers.

While the Riksbank ponders life in the frozen wasteland formerly recognizable as a stable nation, the rest of the world trudges dangerously close to the financial abyss that negative interest rates have created. Reversing interest rates to a standard resembling something almost normal might prove a costly enterprise. After all, most corporations have been feasting upon low rates for so long, buying back their own stock and artificially raising equity share prices by a process of market starvation, a change that will ultimately cost more could very likely corrupt the process and actually foment a global recession.

Not to worry. The central bankers will no doubt have a solution for that as well while pointing their gnarly fingers the way of their political cronies as world economies lurch from bad policies to worse. With Christine Lagarde recently replacing Mario Draghi as president of the ECB, there's little doubt that the failed policies of her predecessor will be enhanced by more high-sounding rhetorical nonsense that will help speed the spiraling down of society into an inescapable morass.

Well, how about that. It's Christmas!

At the Close, Monday, December 23, 2019:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 28,551.53, +96.44 (+0.34%)
NASDAQ: 8,945.65, +20.69 (+0.23%)
S&P 500: 3,224.01, +2.79 (+0.09%)
NYSE Composite: 13,899.99, +10.74 (+0.08%)